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32
Ethics, Self- Interest, and the Public Good
of society, as well as for social community in itself. The fragmentation of society
along many different lines— some of birth, some of socioeconomic condition, but
also for many based on voluntary choices— makes it ever harder to prevent Yeats’s
words from coming to pass when he wrote that “ the center cannot hold.”
The decline in public trust of government is striking. According to a Gallup
Poll in 2004, 50% of those surveyed in the US and Canada regarded political lead-ers
as dishonest and 47% regarded business leaders as dishonest. That phenom-enon
is not limited to the US— 46% of Europeans held the same view. According
to a Louis Harris Poll done for the Council on Excellence in Government, trust in
government was about 15% in 1995 and 22% in 1997.
According to political journalist Michael Kramer, 90% of the public in 1952
believed that government officials always tell the truth, and today the comparable
figure is 10%!
The erosion in the extent to which large parts of the population feel obliged by
the norms of ethical behavior is undermining the norms that hold our society and
its communities together. The decline within the U. S. in religious affiliation and
attendance has not proceeded to the extent that it has in Europe. I don’t understand
how belief in God and religious affiliation and attendance in the United States can
possibly be as high as they both are reported to be, while commitment to ethical
behavior is as low as it is. Either religious affiliation doesn’t have any bite for
most people, or individuals do not regard ethical norms as having anything to do
with religion. Or maybe we have come to believe that anything goes.
Harvard Professor Howard Gardner reports on his teaching of a class in which
he asked the students if they didn’t realize that faking their resume is wrong. They
responded “ Don’t you know, Dr. Gardner, that everybody does it.”
Everybody does it! And where does “ everybody” derive their authority for
doing it?
It is the seductive supremacy of self that apparently justifies “ everybody” in
believing that “ white lies” in their own interest hurt no one, at least if no one finds

32
Ethics, Self- Interest, and the Public Good
of society, as well as for social community in itself. The fragmentation of society
along many different lines— some of birth, some of socioeconomic condition, but
also for many based on voluntary choices— makes it ever harder to prevent Yeats’s
words from coming to pass when he wrote that “ the center cannot hold.”
The decline in public trust of government is striking. According to a Gallup
Poll in 2004, 50% of those surveyed in the US and Canada regarded political lead-ers
as dishonest and 47% regarded business leaders as dishonest. That phenom-enon
is not limited to the US— 46% of Europeans held the same view. According
to a Louis Harris Poll done for the Council on Excellence in Government, trust in
government was about 15% in 1995 and 22% in 1997.
According to political journalist Michael Kramer, 90% of the public in 1952
believed that government officials always tell the truth, and today the comparable
figure is 10%!
The erosion in the extent to which large parts of the population feel obliged by
the norms of ethical behavior is undermining the norms that hold our society and
its communities together. The decline within the U. S. in religious affiliation and
attendance has not proceeded to the extent that it has in Europe. I don’t understand
how belief in God and religious affiliation and attendance in the United States can
possibly be as high as they both are reported to be, while commitment to ethical
behavior is as low as it is. Either religious affiliation doesn’t have any bite for
most people, or individuals do not regard ethical norms as having anything to do
with religion. Or maybe we have come to believe that anything goes.
Harvard Professor Howard Gardner reports on his teaching of a class in which
he asked the students if they didn’t realize that faking their resume is wrong. They
responded “ Don’t you know, Dr. Gardner, that everybody does it.”
Everybody does it! And where does “ everybody” derive their authority for
doing it?
It is the seductive supremacy of self that apparently justifies “ everybody” in
believing that “ white lies” in their own interest hurt no one, at least if no one finds